(Look at this! Look how close I am to being done with this segment of the review! 75% woot woot!)
Pages 1-100
Pages 101-200
Pages 201-300
Pages 301-400
Pages 401-500
Pages 501-600:
1. Cayn helped him with his clothes; white linen tunic and grey cloak, trousers cut open down his plaster-sheathed leg, his badge of office, and last of all a belt of heavy silver links.
Irrelevant. That is all.
2. Robert sends everyone out of the room and then he has Ned scribe his will. Tell me he wasn't intended to be smart, because he was an idiot. This is basic logic: if no one witnesses what the king says but the person who appears to most benefit from it, no one else will believe it. Robert should have known better - hell, Ned should have known better too. And Martin should have known better than to use such an obvious plot device.
3. Men would whisper afterward that Eddard Stark had betrayed his king's friendship and disinherited his sons; he could only hope that the gods would know better, and that Robert would learn the truth of it in the land beyond the grave.
Let's talk a little about perspective, shall we? Specifically, what this book is written in, which would be third-person limited. It shifts focus from character to character depending on the chapter, but it is consistently third-person limited. The chapters are not written from the characters' points of view, as they would be in first; nor are they written as if by a narrator who sees all, as they would be in third person omniscient. Instead, they are limited: written without using 'I' but also allowing the author to focus on a character's thoughts, feelings, or impressions when he needs to. It's really a marvelously versatile perspective, and one which can be used to great effect.
If, that is, the author actually understands what they're doing.
The sentences above would be fine in third omniscient, where the narrator could presumably know how Eddard would be regarded later; given that not only is Eddard Stark not prescient nor does he outlive this book, there is zero logic for a sentence like this appearing in third limited from his perspective.
4. Even when Littlefinger lays out before him all the disastrous consequences of his actions, Ned refuses to give up the moral high ground for such trivial things as practicality and keeping his family alive. I've heard him referred to as the only likeable character in the book - where did people see that? If he had compromised his principles to do the most logical thing, despite the pain it caused him, he might have been likeable to me. If even once he put concrete things before vague concepts, he might have been likeable to me. You know what I think of Ned Stark? I think he's a naive idealist who never grew up and faced the real world, and if I were to mourn his death I would mourn it for what it is: the death of an innocent too juvenile in mind to have yet become noble.
5. "Hodor," Hodor agreed. He was dripping wet from the neck down, steaming in the chill air. His body was covered with brown hair, thick as a pelt. Between his legs his manhood swung long and heavy.
Is Hodor's penis important to the story? No? WELL THEN WHAT THE HELL IS IT DOING HERE? Look, I think everyone knows that men have penises. This is basically accepted fact. That Martin feels the need to emphasize his characters' 'manhoods' (which euphemism he uses over and over) strikes me as a wee bit strange.
6. When he had taken his pleasure, Khal Drogo rose from their sleeping mats to tower above her. His skin shone dark as bronze in the ruddy light from the brazier, the fait lines of old scars visible on his broad chest. Ink-black hair, loose and unbound, cascaded over his shoulders and down his back, well past his waist. His manhood glistened wetly.
See, there it is again. Honestly, what is it with Martin and these 'manhoods'?
Anyhow, my bigger problem with this quote is the way the relationship between Drogo and Dany is portrayed. Even when she's supposed to regard him with affection at the least, love at the most, sex between them is not a loving affair: it is business; he 'takes his pleasure'. This is not, I repeat, is not a healthy relationship - and yet it is portrayed as something powerful and real. No. What it is is a young woman, barely even a teenager, being repeatedly raped and then being forced by the authority of the writer into an unbalanced, unnatural, unhealthy state of caring for her rapist. In all their sex scenes, before and after Dany's bizarre character shift, Drogo appears as a dominant force. Call me crazy, but this reads like fantasies creeping out. Yeah, I said it. FIGHT ME.
601-700 on Thursday.
